Christopher Barret Sowers
10 August 2008
Monroe Research Paper
The Impact of Culture on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission in Sierra Leone by comparing it with other similar institutions in surrounding African
countries. This paper will focus on the commission’s overall effectiveness, and specifically, its
effectiveness in utilizing specific cultural aspects to achieve its overall objective. This paper will closely
examine three aspects of culture and the effect they had on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in
Sierra Leone, as well as the effects they have had on similar commissions in neighboring African
countries. These three aspects of culture that will be examined are: religion, existing cultural
institutions, and ethnicity. The goal of this paper is to show that by taking certain cultural aspects into
consideration, the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions conducted in Africa may substantially increase
awareness in citizens of their respective countries, and consequently, increase their overall
effectiveness.
From 1991 until 2002, Sierra Leone experience a period of civil strife that “saw tens of
thousands of people killed and thousands more mutilated” (Andersen). The violence broke
out in March 1991 when RUF fighters, backed by special forces from Charles Taylor’s NPFL,
invaded southeast Sierra Leone. For the next decade, various successive governments,
with help from local guerrilla groups, attempted to drive back the RUF (Adebajo 81-82).
This conflict, which can only be described as a war, was particularly notorious for the
amputations rebels conducted to inspire fear and terror in their victims (BBC News). The
violence in Sierra Leone was officially ended on July 7, 1999 with the signing of the Lome
Peace Agreement. Among other things, the Lome Peace Agreement creates a mandate for a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Article XXVI (“Peace Agreements”).
Since Sierra Leone has many citizens of many different faiths, taking religion into
consideration when setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can be extremely
useful. Therefore, the Truth and Reconciliation of Sierra Leone held “a number of meetings”
with the Inter-Religious Council to connect the spiritual community with the TRC process.
As a result, a workshop was held in January 2003 to discuss the “role of religion in
reconciliation” (The Final Report). The Sierra Leone TRC was able to strengthen ties with
the religious community through the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in
Sierra Leone, Bishop Joseph Humper, who also heads the Inter-Religious Council (The
Religion Report). This connection between the Commission and the religious institutions
was further illustrated through “follow-up district support committees” that the InterReligious Council conducted, through funding from UNDP, to alleviate the frustration of the
locals that resulted from a lack of funds and time available with the actual Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (Dougherty). Consequently, by taking the different religions in
Sierra Leone into consideration, and by working in close proximity with specific religious
institutions, the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission has provided strong
evidence that it has increased its effectiveness through the Inter-Religious Council.
In comparison, other countries in Africa that have experienced conflicts have made
similar, although perhaps less successful, attempts to take into consideration and use
religion to improve the reconciliation processes implemented. In South Africa, the
reconciliation process was aided by the religious concepts of forgiveness and ubuntu, which
creates a “belief in the indivisibility of humanity” and, consequently, leads to a “capacity for
forgiveness” (Graybill & Lanegran). In fact, the Commission chairman in South Africa was
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and he called on all religious communities to provide evidence to
the commission, stating that the religious institutions did not speak out against the abuses
loudly enough (Downes). Ultimately, the religious leanings within the South African
Commission greatly increased the “reconciliation focus” of the commission (Hayner 41), and
despite the diverse array of religions found in South Africa, the South African Commission
was able to effectively incorporate religion as a part of the process, while still ensuring the
Commission’s legitimacy (Meiring 123-131). Burundi, as well, has taken measures to
increase religious sensitivity in their attempts at reconciliation in the Arusha Peace
Agreement, although they have done so to a lesser extent than either South Africa or Sierra
Leone. For example, the Arusha Peace Agreement specifies that any group choosing to
promote discrimination on the basis of religion, among other factors, is officially banned,
and it later states that candidates for membership in the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission may be put forward by religious denominations (“Arusha Peace”). Other
African nations have been more reluctant to incorporate religion into their reconciliation
processes. For example, the official Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia made
no provision or attempt to connect the reconciliation process to the various religious
institutions, stating only that victims “shall be treated equally, without regard to race,
ethnicity, religion, language, sex or nationality” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
Liberia). Whether this is due in part to the lack of a formal inter-religious council, or
whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in these countries simply wish to keep
the proceedings secular, the effect of common religious beliefs in a country on the
reconciliation processes may be debated. However, as the cases of Sierra Leone and South
Africa prove, it is possible to include religious institutions as part of the reconciliation
process with some degree of effectiveness, and these cases further demonstrate that such
an affiliation can both enhance the process by attracting individuals from a variety of
backgrounds to testify and by providing the commissions with access to more resources.
Furthermore, certain religious institutions can include members from a variety of religions
and beliefs, and rather than alienate members of another religion, connections with such
religious institutions may serve to attract a variety of respondents to the truth and
reconciliation processes being implemented.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone did, at least initially, make
an attempt to take different ethnic groups within the country into consideration. The
Commission attempted to “understand how the different ethnic groups in Sierra Leone”
dealt with different justice and reconciliation issues, and they appointed Sierra Leonean
Commissioners that represent “the diversity of the country” (The Final Report). However,
despite this statement of intent, no apparent effort, other than trying to choose a few
Commissioners that exhibited diversity, was made by the Sierra Leone Truth and
Reconciliation Commission to use ethnic groups to improve the process. This was perhaps
detrimental to the TRC in Sierra Leone because Sierra Leone, like many other African
nations, is made up of a diverse group of individuals that often use political groups as a way
of fracturing along ethnic lines (Kandeh 83). Although a recent study conducted in Sierra
Leone does reveal that many Sierra Leoneans do not believe the conflict in Sierra Leone was
ethnically motivated and that ethnic relations have increased, 28.6% of Sierra Leoneans felt
the ethnic situation has not improved in Sierra Leone, and 48.0% of Sierra Leoneans
surveyed still felt that the causes of the conflict included ethnic rivalry (Backer). This
indicates that while ethnicity may not be a major consideration, ethnic sensitivity in the
Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission may help to strengthen ethnic ties.
In comparison, Rwanda, although its conflict was the result of increasing ethnic
tension, has perhaps taken the least consideration for ethnicity in its reconciliation process
than any other African nation. Although the gacaca process in Rwanda has met with some
success, it is often criticized for being “decidedly one-sided” because many Tutsi victims are
presented with the chance to confront Hutu perpetrators, but Hutu victims are rarely
allowed to confront their Tutsi perpetrators (Pepper). While terming the gacaca process as
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a reconciliation commission may be a bit of a stretch, it does serve an important function in
reconciliation in Rwanda, and it is a key part of the processes discussed in this paper. In
contrast to Rwanda, Burundi, although sharing some of the same ethnic groups as Rwanda,
attempted to bring ethnic groups together in the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation
Agreement by the “Promotion of a national inter-ethnic resistance front” and by banning all
associations that promote ethnic discrimination (“Arusha Peace”). In some regards, South
Africa also took ethnic issues into consideration when creating their Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. A “multiracial selection panel that included a representative from every major
political party” was established, and the initial commissioners chosen included “seven
blacks…two Coloureds…two Indians…and six whites.” The goal of this process was to create
a group of appointees that resembled the broad mix of ethnic and political diversity in South
Africa (Graybill).
In terms of existing traditional institutions in Sierra Leone that are typically used for
conflict resolution, the Commission tried “to integrate the traditional institutions and
processes into its work” (The Final Report). The Commission made an attempt to
incorporate traditional institutions, both formal and informal specifically by using research
conducted by the NGO Campaign for Good Governance and the NGO Manifesto 99
(Dougherty). Manifesto 99 also helped organize “preparatory seminars” to disseminate
information about transitional justice throughout the various regions in Sierra Leone
(“Preparatory Seminars”). However, there is little evidence that any other attempts have
been made to incorporate traditional cultural institutions in a significant way into the
reconciliation process in Sierra Leone. Arguments might exist for why less interference by
local cultural institutions may be a good thing, but regardless, a study conducted in Sierra
Leone revealed that 40.8% of the population surveyed said that they felt some sort of
traditional leader (either a chief of community elder) was one of the most effective methods
of conflict resolution (Backer). Another study conducted in 2006 reveals that 64.8% of the
population studied did not believe that there were any local methods for “promoting truth
and reconciliation.” This clearly reveals that local institutions were not being utilized in
Sierra Leone, despite the fact that they are typically “cheaper, local community friendly, and
also likely to command acceptance from the people” (Sesay 43-44).
Rwanda has perhaps taken the greatest initiative to incorporate existing cultural
institutions into their reconciliation process. The gacaca process, also known as the “grass
courts” are traditional court systems that are utilized in Rwanda to try perpetrators of
crimes that occurred during the Rwandan genocide. While these courts have been criticized
for their lack of a proper defense for the defendants, as well as their lack of impartiality,
they have successfully brought tribal leaders together in an effort to unite citizens through
traditional cultural institutions, and they have been able to hold more trials than their
international counterpart in Rwanda (“Rwanda’s Grass Courts”). While the gacaca process
in Rwanda could certainly use some modifications because of inherent flaws, it is a great
example of how a country managed to use an existing cultural institution to aid in
reconciliation and justice on a more personal, individual level. South Africa, although it did
not utilize a specific cultural institution already in place, used a traditional mechanism of
healing in Africa: storytelling. In fact, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is quoted as saying,
“Story telling is central…to the African tradition of which we are all a part” (Ross 168).
To conclude, culture plays an important role in the direction that a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission may take in a country. While it is possible to ignore certain
cultural aspects in a commission in the interest of impartiality, in many cases, it is possible
to bring various groups together through institutions designed to unite religious or ethnic
factions, such as the Inter-Religious Council in Sierra Leone. By utilizing certain cultural
aspects, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions may also gain access to more resources,
whether it is manpower or money, and they may attract a more diverse array of victims.
Religion, ethnicity, and cultural institutions are often times causes for division, but in a
fractured country, they may also act as forces that drive individuals together in a common
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goal of reconciliation, and they may help to tailor a Commission to fit a country’s cultural
history and current needs. While few studies have been conducted to determine the effects
of these aspects of culture on the reconciliation process, specific instances in which these
cultural aspects were used, such as the religious connection in Sierra Leone and South
Africa and the use of the gacaca process in Rwanda, provide strong evidence that
reconciliation processes may be made more effective by the inclusion, or at least
consideration, of certain cultural tendencies in specific areas of the country in question.
Finally, however, it is important to realize that some cultural considerations bear a price,
such as complaints of the ineffectiveness of the gacaca process in Rwanda, and the price of
these considerations must be weighed with the benefits to determine what kind of Truth and
Reconciliation Process would be most the most useful process for promoting long-term
peace and understanding.
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